Seib & Wessel: End of the Town Hall Free-for-All?

WSJ's Janet Hook explains why the summer-recession congressional town hall meetings aren't what they used to be.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

the ... meet Sunday does this is just one more thing that Congress is going ... to ... deal with on the comeback in the fall and that the president's gonna have to try to ... work with Congress on and didn't seem to be much progress on the front ... of the August recess make it better or worse ... yet Congress is actually on in their home districts and states ... for eight five ... weeks which is a long time to be away from the capital ... and there are ... some of them are holding a lot of town hall meetings and hearing from their voters ... a lot of them are like its shying away from holding town hall meetings because they got into the kind of raucous an out of control ... in past years ... aam what I've noticed though is that is that both sides of every issue ... at Mobileye so effectively in noisily that there's no one message that showing up at these town hall meetings ... aam for one likes into thousandnine was all let's tackle bombing right in two thousand and nine the summer of two thousand I was the real kind of pivotal moment for you know that ... the way the interest groups and lawmakers cute ... tumble meetings because it's the middle of the Obamacare debate ... aam and ... and peace ... the stumbles just erupted in opposition to the bill any really can change the course of that debate or effect of atonement that debate so much that and that was so much kind of ... aam to the ... attic control behavior that was amplified by you know people use the new members got really gun shy about having these kind of freeform ... debates he said the other day that is even possible in some districts to find out if your customers happy ... it's not on the Internet may want a ... break to make the information about the town also all lot harder to find the ordinance Group spatial coordinates potential ban and the other factor is in early two thousand eleven when Gabby Giffords one shot knew she was holding one of these kind of countless street corner things ... and so part of it is certain this overlay of ... physical security concerns ... but in it they do kind of stayed the course of what you really have to kind of be an investigative reporter and a website to find information sometimes yet to call them up and sometimes they say well we don't really know what's happening later this week and you know I hope that they're a little bit better organized and that led to the substance of show that would seem to be that you'd probably not going to be some crystal ization of C the budget debate as result of that I along with constituents back home in August it's gonna be too diffuse for that to happen correct I think that's it I think that's the aam anybody who's looking to these August recess is an Townhall meetings to kind of Sabah province for Congress not and has to be a lot of work going on in the House leadership ... John banner Eric Cantor to try to ... prevent the ... tea party crowd from driving ... country off the rails in its fiscal fight ... all yeahh I he I think that um ... before the recess there was this you know try among some tea tea party ... senators members of Congress to say ... let's make this big showdown over the in the continuing resolution funding the government ... to be a referendum on Obamacare don't pass a bill that has any money for Obamacare ... and that kind of dream ... race the Polish government shutdown thing that you know speak urbane or was there in the nineteen nineties when